


Time out of Mind

by TempleCloud



Series: Journey to Camelot [5]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Arthurian Mythology, Henry IV - Shakespeare, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Singing, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25991806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempleCloud/pseuds/TempleCloud
Summary: Sir Andrew Aguecheek had just hoped to come home to England and his family, after the disappointments of Illyria.  Instead, he and his friend Malvolio have wound up so far back in the distant past that England isn't even England yet, in the company of a fat knight, a mythical king, a centaur, and a psychopathic assassin/inventor/architect/music teacher.
Series: Journey to Camelot [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871695
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

‘I thought you said your uncle lived near here,’ said Malvolio.

‘I don’t even know where “here” is,’ I protested. ‘I said his country house was a couple of miles from where we were _supposed_ to get off the boat, and there was a pony-trap service to take our luggage...’

‘There _were_ people to take our luggage,’ Malvolio pointed out. ‘Six large men with cudgels and daggers. I suppose it didn’t occur to you that, considering you’re supposed to be a knight, you might have thought of drawing your sword to put them off the idea?’

‘If I had, they’d have stolen the sword as well. It’s quite an expensive one. But anyway, my uncle is the magistrate for this – for where we meant to get off, and when we give a description of the robbers to the police, and the police catch them, I’m sure my uncle can sort everything out.’

‘Have you _seen_ a policeman since we landed?’ snapped Malvolio. ‘Or do the English police traditionally disguise themselves as trees? In the five hours that we’ve been tramping through dense forest since we got off in what you said was the right place...’

‘Well, I couldn’t see properly. It was only just dawn, and anyway I was too seasick to notice where we were.’

‘In the past five hours, we haven’t seen a single human being except those robbers, nor any human habitation, and our total wealth now consists of – well, what did you have in your pockets when we ran away?’

I checked. ‘A hairbrush, a bottle of shampoo with the lid off, a Portuguese dictionary soaked in shampoo, a pocket mirror, and my notebook for writing down interesting words. What about you?’

‘Three wax candles, a box of matches, a pencil and paper, and a copy of _Silas Marner_. Which, incidentally, was first published in 1861.’ Malvolio paused dramatically.

‘That’s interesting,’ I said politely.

‘If you wouldn’t mind lining up your surviving brain cells, sir, can you remember the date when we left Illyria?’

‘The beginning of February...’ I began to see what Malvolio was driving at. ‘Yes, that _is_ odd, isn’t it? I mean, we didn’t seem to be on the boat for more than a couple of weeks, and now it’s the middle of summer. Do you think we’ve been kidnapped and brainwashed and then made to forget it?’

‘Never mind the month – what _year_ was it?’

‘1600 – no, wait, 1601.’

‘Exactly. And yet I own a book written two hundred and sixty years in the future. And you remember that old man we were talking to, the night before we set sail?’

‘You told me I dreamed all that!’

‘The next morning, I saw an obituary of him in a London newspaper.’

‘That’s quick. How did they find out so soon that he was dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Malvolio, ‘but it was a very old newspaper. It was printed in September 1415.’

So we had seen a ghost. I had even held a ghost in my arms, and he hadn’t felt at all ghostly: sweaty and shivering and tearful, heavy and flabby and smelling as if he hadn’t washed for a while, but definitely not like anything eerie or unearthly. ‘Maybe someone kept the paper to try to finish the crossword,’ I said. ‘That’d be awfully difficult, doing a crossword from two hundred years ago, because they had different spelling then. But anyway, what did it say about him?’

‘Not a lot. I imagine that either he was a shadowy figure and the reporter didn’t know much about him, or the tabloids had been so full of every detail during his lifetime that it wasn’t worthwhile for a respectable newspaper to repeat it all. But apparently he was a soldier – even an officer, though goodness knows who’d put someone like that in charge of anything! He fought at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1406, and claimed to have killed some rebel leader, but nobody knew whether that was true or not. What _was_ definitely true was that 98% of the soldiers he’d led into battle got killed, and his only comment was that they were as good for filling a pit as better men. He sounds a nasty piece of work.’

‘It was probably just a joke,’ I said. ‘Maybe he was upset about what had happened and didn’t want to admit it.’

‘Don’t you believe it! He was very pleased with himself over having supposedly killed this enemy leader, and he said he wanted to be made a duke or at least an earl as a reward, as long as it didn’t mean he had to lose weight or adopt a healthy lifestyle. People like that aren’t capable of caring about anyone except themselves.’ After a slight pause, Malvolio added, ‘By the way, what exactly is an earl?’

‘It’s sort of the English equivalent of a count,’ I explained.

‘So he was aiming for the same rank as we were?’ Malvolio shook his head as if to dislodge this thought, and went on: ‘But anyway, that doesn’t explain why someone who died in London in 1415 should suddenly turn up in Illyria nearly two hundred years later.’

‘Maybe ghosts just appear when they feel like it,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’d been murdered and wanted us to find out who did it. I wish I was in a murder mystery.’

‘But you faint at the sight of blood,’ Malvolio pointed out.

‘Ah, yes, but if this was a murder mystery, I’d secretly be a genius detective who only _looked_ like a useless twit,’ I said. ‘Or if it was a farce, you’d be an incredibly suave butler who knows all about everything from Greek philosophy to the racehorses at Ascot and how to get my friends to admit to being in love with each other when they’re so shy that _she_ only wants to talk about fairy-tales and _he_ only wants to talk about newts. You’re not, are you?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Malvolio. ‘I’m an honest man, and I have no intention of metamorphosing into a cross between Pandarus and a racing columnist.’

‘Well, if things are going to be this confusing, it’d help if one of us was a genius,’ I said.

‘Andrew! Malvolio! You took your time over getting here!’ called a familiar voice. ‘I’ve been walking with King Arthur these past two months, shouldering packs with him in the hot sun and keeping his spirits up on the trek to the Lair of the White Rabbit, and you two just turn up when it suits you!’

By this time we had rounded the bend in the path and come face to face with Sir John Oldcastle and a tall, armoured man who could easily slice us into shreds. ‘Still, Arthur,’ Sir John continued, ‘shall we forgive them and let them come with us anyway? They were probably just too shy to ask, when they saw you before.’

King Arthur looked puzzled. ‘Have we met?’ he asked. ‘When?’

‘Don’t you remember?’ persisted Sir John. ‘When I was dying and you came to summon me? They were keeping me company then. The lad with hair like mouldy straw had his arms round me.’

King Arthur shook his head. ‘I think you must have dreamt that. I’ve never seen these gentlemen in my life.’

Sir John breathed heavily a couple of times, then roared: ‘You kings are all the same, aren’t you? You’ll be friends with a man as long as it suits you, then disown him without a moment’s warning! Now you’re trying to deny that Malvolio and Sir Andrew were sitting with me when the three of us had nothing left but our failures and disappointments, and shared those. Well, at this rate, how long will it be before you swear three times before the cock crows that you’ve never met me either? You’re just like all kings, and I don’t want to be your friend ever again!’

King Arthur waited for him to pause for breath, and then said, ‘Jack, you know I love you, and I’m sure these friends of yours are good men and they’re welcome to join us. I just meant that when I met you, there were different people attending you: a woman, and a boy of about twelve or thirteen, and a man with a very red face. I don’t think they could see me, though.’

‘We couldn’t see you, either,’ I said. ‘We heard your voice at first, and then we didn’t.’

For a moment we all stood around, trying to make sense of this, and then Sir John said: ‘Of course! Do you remember Cheiron explaining about how things smaller than atoms are in two places at once, and don’t decide where they are until someone looks at them? But I’m much bigger than an atom, so there was enough of me to be in _three_ places at the same time. I was in an inn in London in my world, with Robin, my page; and Bardolph, the man with a face that looks like Hell-fire; and Nell, who was the owner of the inn where I was staying, and the wife of another of my followers. But at the same time, I was in a room in a different inn in Illyria, with Sir Andrew and Malvolio, and also in a clearing in a forest somewhere with you and Cheiron. But you had to look at me for me to choose where I really was, like an electron. And I’m sorry I shouted at you, Arthur.’

‘I’m not,’ said King Arthur. ‘If I’d been behaving as shabbily as you thought, I’d have deserved it.’

‘Well, I’ll introduce everyone. Arthur, this is Malvolio of Illyria, who is probably brave, honest, and responsible, which is a lot more than I am. This is Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who is young and might be innocent for all I know, which is more than any of us is, and who has streams of sweet sympathy running through his heart, if you can drill through the strata of stupidity, vanity, and prejudices, to get at them. And this is King Arthur, the utterly memorable King of Britain, who pulled the sword out of the scone and is definitely not to be confused with Alfred the Cake.’

‘But we don’t even come from the same era,’ complained Malvolio. ‘We’re from the seventeenth century, you’re from the fifteenth, and goodness knows when King Arthur was supposed to have been alive – if you’ll forgive my discourtesy, your majesty, but there really isn’t any evidence that you ever existed.’

‘Well, of course there isn’t!’ said Sir John. ‘We’re not in a history any more, so it doesn’t have to be any particular century. It was the same when I was staying in Windsor: as far as I could find out, the king was still Henry V, but all the hit songs were by a king called Henry VIII, like [_Greensleeves_](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=greensleeves&docid=608018118958187205&mid=7A6B7BBAAF65BA48FB107A6B7BBAAF65BA48FB10&view=detail&FORM=VIRE) and [_Pastime With Good Company_](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27Pastime+with+good+company%27+youtube&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3d%2527Pastime%2bwith%2bgood%2bcompany%2527%2byoutube%26qs%3dn%26form%3dQBRE%26sp%3d-1%26pq%3d%2527pastime%2bwith%2bgood%2bcompany%2527%2byoutube%26sc%3d1-35%26sk%3d%26cvid%3d183EFA73C877433BA5F79BC543995696&mmscn=vwrc&view=detail&mid=3ED6A0C2092CF00DA3F33ED6A0C2092CF00DA3F3&rvsmid=B225282A5156FD542D1EB225282A5156FD542D1E&FORM=VDQVAP). And there was a wonderful restaurant specialising in exotic foods from the New World. Now, I don’t see how turkeys are ever going to replace a good capon, but potatoes are the finest vegetable ever invented, especially roast, and chocolate gateau is just amazing. Only it was a while before I even found out where "the New World" was – for all I knew, it could have been a colony on the moon. 

‘And there were actors who sometimes came there to act all kinds of plays in Windsor Park – or at least, they did when people like Malvolio didn’t stop them because their plays were so godless. Well, in my day, practically all the plays had been about Bible stories, but _these_ plays were about anything _except_ Bible stories: plays about fairies, plays about usurper kings, plays about star-crossed lovers or identical twins or girls disguised as boys – whatever the author felt like writing and people wanted to see. But the point was, there were history plays about kings who’d lived _after_ my time but _before_ whenever it was in Windsor, and those had a specific place and date. But if the play was a comedy, it didn’t remotely matter if it was about some modern-day English workmen putting on a play for a king in ancient Athens.

‘So you see, the story I was living in while I was in Windsor must have been pure comedy, rather than a historical comedy drama, which meant nothing too bad could happen to me while I was there. But as soon as I went back to London, I was back in the cycle of history plays, which meant I could die, and so, when I died, I finished up here in Arthur’s world. And so have you.’

‘That doesn’t even begin to make sense,’ said Malvolio.

‘Well, no,’ I said, ‘but then, things didn’t make much sense in our world, either, did they? Meeting identical twins who are a brother and sister doesn’t really make sense, unless we were in a play by someone who’s obsessed with twins and with transvestites. And maybe we shouldn’t have been so horrible to you for being a Puritan, but we had to be, if we were written by a playwright who was angry with Puritans for making it difficult for him to make a living.’

‘Is there anyone sane I can talk to?’ groaned Malvolio. ‘Someone who can tell us how to get back to our own world?’

‘I don’t know,’ said King Arthur, ‘but I think your best bet is a friend of ours called Cheiron. We’re just on our way to meet him, as it happens – if I remember rightly, we should be only two or three miles away from the meeting-point now. So if you’d like to come with us, we’ll see whether Cheiron can send you home.’

‘That’s if you want to go home,’ added Sir John. ‘I can’t go back to my world, because I’m dead there, but you two have probably got the option. But have you got anything to go back for? Or anyone who wants you back?’

‘I’ve got’ – I paused to consider – ‘an uncle who pays me three thousand ducats a year not to come near him, another uncle who lets me come and visit his estate and ride his horses and hunt in his deer-park but he’s usually away when I go to stay there, and a third uncle who just likes to be left alone in his library. And there’s an aunt who keeps asking me when I’m going to get into university, and another aunt who thinks I ought to get married. They’ve been taking it in turns to put up with me since I was eleven.’

‘You’re an orphan, then?’ said Sir John. ‘No parents to nag you about getting drunk and starting fights?’

‘He’s got me now,’ said Malvolio. ‘And I’m not going to let you corrupt this boy.’

‘I’m not trying to corrupt him! Since I’ve been here, I’ve been such a paragon of virtue that I hardly recognise myself, haven’t I, Arthur?’


	2. Chapter 2

The path to the Lair of the White Rabbit was a bit longer than King Arthur had remembered, and led up and down rocky slopes. It didn’t look like anything I recognised, but I suppose England looked different a thousand years ago. It wasn’t even England, because it was Britain in those days. We tried explaining to Malvolio why this was, but as I’d never paid much attention to history lessons as a child, and neither had Sir John, and King Arthur’s tutor had been a time-travelling wizard who could remember the future, we were all a bit hazy about the details.

Eventually, Arthur said, ‘Ah, here we are. Now, Cheiron is a centaur – a being who’s half man and half horse – but I promise you can trust him. We’ll meet him in just a moment, and I think he’s bringing another friend to join us.’

A shrill voice to the left of the path cackled, ‘We’re over here!’ at which a warm, motherly voice on the right said, ‘No, moi loverr, ’tis over ’ere.’ Next, a deep, resonant voice from the cave in front of us said, ‘Erik, stop messing about,’ and then the same deep voice again, now behind us, said, ‘Sorry about Erik – he’s a ventriloquist, and he won’t stop showing off.’

We looked at each other, and King Arthur said, ‘Well, the cave is this way, anyway – and there’s a sheer cliff off to the right.’

While he was still speaking, a voice that seemed to come from deep underground said, ‘By all the djinn of the desert, Cheiron, what kind of freak have you wished on me now?’ A moment later, Cheiron the centaur came out, carrying a man who looked like a skeleton in a suit. I didn’t want to look, in case the man’s head turned out to be a skull, but when he looked towards us I realised that he did have a face, because there were dark pinkish-purple scars running across his pale, shrivelled skin. I wondered whether he’d been hurt in a fight and Cheiron had looked after him until he got better, the way Malvolio had looked after me.

‘And now you can say hello like a normal person,’ said Cheiron, setting Erik down on the ground. ‘This is King Arthur, this is Sir John Oldcastle...’

‘No he isn’t,’ said Erik, whose glowing yellow eyes were staring into Sir John’s. ‘I know who you are: you’re the inspiration for operas by Verdi, Salieri, Vaughan Williams, Carl Otto Nicolai, and Gordon Getty, plus a symphonic study by Elgar. And who did _I_ get? Andrew Lloyd-Webber! But everyone knows your name; it’s too famous to be hidden.’

‘I can be famous under any name,’ said Sir John, ‘but Oldcastle was my name in the original manuscript. It’s just that my author had to change it for legal reasons.’

‘I, too, have gone under many names,’ said Erik. ‘In the circus, I was exhibited as The Living Corpse. In Persia, I was known as He Who Loves Trapdoors, and in Constantinople, I was The Fiend with the Punjab Lasso. In Paris, I was The Phantom to those who feared me, The Angel of Music to my admirers, and Erik to my girlfriend.’

‘Erik, we’ve been through this,’ sighed Cheiron. ‘She wasn’t ever your girlfriend. Kidnapping does not constitute a relationship.’

‘It wasn’t just kidnapping!’ protested Erik. ‘There was all the stalking first, as well. Anyway, it was the nearest I’ve ever had to a relationship. You see, I am a man of exceptional gifts and exceptional defects. I am a greater musician than Mozart, and more multi-talented than Leonardo Da Vinci, but, to balance this, I was born uglier than Quasimodo and more deranged than the Emperor Caligula.’

‘And even more of a show-off than I am,’ concluded Sir John. ‘You should fit in perfectly with this lot.’

‘I’ve never fitted in anywhere,’ said Erik wretchedly, and then brightened. ‘But now that Cheiron’s mending me, I might! Has anyone got a mirror?’

I fished mine out of my pocket, wiped the shampoo-smears off it with my sleeve, and handed it to Erik, who stood for several minutes peering at his reflection, and running his pale, bony fingers over his face in astonishment. ‘I have a nose!’ he exclaimed. ‘I own an actual nose that isn’t made of wax and is an integral part of my face, and I don’t need to wear a mask ever again! Cheiron, you’re nearly as great a genius as I am!’ And with that, he threw himself down on the ground and began kissing the centaur’s hooves.

‘Oh, it was the least I could do,’ said Cheiron. ‘But getting enough sunlight and fresh air, and remembering to eat meals, will do more for your looks than my poor skill in surgery ever could.’

‘That’s doctors for you!’ said Sir John. ‘He’s always nagging me like that, as well.’

Erik jumped up, his eyes blazing and his fists clenched. ‘Don’t you dare say a word against Cheiron!’ he shrieked. ‘He’s a god, do you hear me, a _god_! He’s ransomed my life from the grave and he’s given me a nose, and now I’m starting to look nearly like a normal person, the sort of man who can get a flat and a wife and live a normal life and go and assassinate Andrew Lloyd-Webber!’

Cheiron laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Erik, we agreed: no more assassinations.’

‘Are you a real assassin?’ I asked. ‘A professional one, I mean?’

‘Amongst other things. I have been a sideshow freak, conjuror and ventriloquist; a political assassin and executioner; an inventor of mechanical toys, spy devices, and instruments of torture; an architect and building contractor; and a protection racketeer, composer, and singing teacher. What do you do?’

‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘I like fencing and dancing, and I’d like to learn to sing. Could you teach me, do you think?’

Erik shrugged. ‘I can try, I suppose. What voice are you?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, what notes can you sing? Most men are either bass, baritone, tenor, or occasionally alto; most women are soprano or alto, but I’ve heard some good female tenors. Personally, I’ve always been able to sing everything from bass to top soprano, which means that an opera scored for tenor hero, soprano heroine, pompous bass in love with the heroine, elderly ugly contralto in love with the hero, comic baritone with patter-song, and male and female choruses, is, if you look at it another way, an opera scored for Erik. But anyway, try singing something.’

I launched into [a song I remembered Feste singing](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+%27come+away+death%23&docid=608016482718909316&mid=A7BAC10B68D909C73E68A7BAC10B68D909C73E68&view=detail&FORM=VIRE):

_‘Come away, come away, death,_

_And in sad cypress let me be laid;_

_Fly away, fly away, breath;_

_I am slain by a fair cruel maid._

_My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,_

_O, prepare it!_

_My part of death, no-one so true_

_Did share it.’_

Erik nodded. ‘I’d say you’re a light tenor: rather a narrow range, so you probably shouldn’t attempt difficult classical pieces, but you should be all right on popular and folk songs. But you’re a dilettante, a hobbyist, that’s your trouble! You could have hit all the notes in that song without straining; as it was, you got about two-thirds of them right. You must learn to listen, to hear how a song should sound, and then learn to listen to yourself as you sing it back! This is how the tune goes:

_‘Not a flower, not a flower sweet,_

_On my black coffin let there be strown;_

_Not a friend, not a friend greet_

_My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown;_

_A thousand thousand sighs to save,_

_Lay me, O, where_

_Sad true lover never find my grave_

_To weep there!’_

‘In my opinion, sir, it would be best to ignore Monsieur Erik,’ said Malvolio in his most butler-ish voice. ‘His interest in giving you music lessons is more likely to lie in his amusement at your failure, rather than a desire to develop your negligible ability.’

‘No, Monsieur le Serviteur, it doesn’t!’ snapped Erik. ‘I don’t care about this brainless popinjay for himself, but I do care about music, and I wouldn’t try to teach it to someone who didn’t have potential.’

‘How do you spell “popinjay”?’ I asked.

‘P, O, P, I, N, J, A, Y,’ said Erik. ‘It means “a shallow and conceited fop”, and comes from Spanish, ultimately from Arabic.’

‘Thank you!’ I borrowed Malvolio’s pencil and wrote the word in my notebook before I had time to forget it, underneath ‘poetaster’ and ‘pleonasm’.

‘Would you like something to eat?’ asked Cheiron. ‘Erik requested mushroom soup and a strawberry flan, but by the time I’d made them, he’d decided he wasn’t hungry.’

‘I just don’t like home-made food,’ grumbled Erik. ‘And I hate English bread; it’s all brown and stodgy. In Paris, _if_ I wanted to eat, I could put on my “looking like a normal person” mask, go out through the tunnel to the market and pick up a croissant and a baguette and a bit of Brie, and then go home to my island on my subterranean lake and spend the day in peace. And if I didn’t feel like eating, there was nobody to pressure me about it. Anyway, I hate eating in front of other people.’

‘Good, we’ll eat yours, then,’ said Sir John. ‘I’ve been fading away since breakfast.’

‘Malvolio and I didn’t even have a chance to have breakfast,’ I added.

So Cheiron shared out the thick, dark, field-mushroom soup and the wholemeal bread, followed by the flan. There wasn’t much between the six of us (or five really, because Erik refused to eat anything except a tiny piece of flan), but it was delicious, and afterwards, I decided to do the washing-up. When I’d put everything to drain on the ground outside the cave, King Arthur noticed that I was doing. ‘Oh, thank you, Sir Andrew, that’s very helpful,’ he said. ‘But – can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, in my day, boys who were expecting to become knights would start off working as pages, just doing routine chores, then serve as squire to a knight, and then be knighted themselves if they proved worthy. I didn’t think I actually would become a knight, because I was a foundling and didn’t know who my parents were, but I’d served my apprenticeship anyway, just in case. Now, did trainee knights still prepare like that, later on?’

‘I did,’ said Sir John. ‘I was page to Sir Thomas Mowbray.’

‘Well, I didn’t!’ I said. ‘I thought that was what servants were for! And I know you two probably think I’m not a real knight because I’ve never been a soldier and I was dubbed with unhatched rapier upon carpet consideration and I can’t even win a fight against a girl, but I was just trying to be helpful by doing the washing-up, and if I haven’t done it the right way, well, it was my first time, and I don’t see how being good at housework is going to turn me into a hero!’

‘Maybe it won’t,’ said King Arthur, ‘but it will mean that we aren’t eating dinner off dishes that still have bits of lunch stuck to them. You see, if you just dip plates and dishes in water, it doesn’t always dislodge all the bits of food, and then, if you leave them stacked right-side-up, one on top of the other, they won’t drip dry. Shall I show you how to do it? You see, this is a washing-up bowl, and this is a rinsing-bowl, and this is called a scrubbing-brush...’

‘If it’s going to take a long time to explain, I’m going to get my head down for a bit,’ said Sir John. ‘Don’t be ashamed; Arthur’s nephew Gareth spent a year working in the kitchens of Camelot, in disguise so that nobody even knew he was the King’s nephew and the brother of the great Sir Gawain. He was knighted after he’d fought a Green Knight, but a different one from the Green Knight that Sir Gawain fought. In fact, Sir Gareth fought a whole spectrum, with the Red Knight and the Puce Knight and the Indigo Knight and the [Knight in White Satin](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+%27nights+in+white+satin%27&view=detail&mid=6C8CE41D4F4E85EBE2BA6C8CE41D4F4E85EBE2BA&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dyoutube%2b%2527nights%2bin%2bwhite%2bsatin%2527%26qs%3dn%26form%3dQBRE%26sp%3d-1%26pq%3dyoutube%2b%2527nights%2bin%2bwhite%2bsatin%2527%26sc%3d6-31%26sk%3d%26cvid%3dA32ED30B565943F387B5E51BC5AB5BA4); his adventures were like one of those picture-books for teaching babies to recognise colours. Get Arthur to tell you the story later.’

And with that he disappeared into the cave, leaving King Arthur to show me how to wash up properly. It was a bit complicated, but I got the hang of it in the end, and in a way it was good that people could be bothered to correct me. In my world, everyone had either said, ‘Yes, yes, your clothes/hair/dancing looks very nice; yes, of course my niece wants to marry you; now I’ll have another bottle of Amontillado, as it’s your round,’ or they’d told me I was a waste of space, or they’d just pretended I didn’t exist. Erik and King Arthur were the first people I’d met who took me seriously and really believed I could learn things.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time we’d finished washing up after lunch, Cheiron was asking Erik to think about what he wanted for dinner.

‘Skylarks?’ suggested Erik.

‘Hmmm – English people don’t usually eat songbirds,’ said Cheiron. ‘I know there’s no logical reason why it’s all right to eat chickens and ducks but not larks or thrushes, but they’re a bit fiddly to catch and fillet.’

‘Can we have trout with watercress, then?’

‘That’s a good idea. There’s a river full of trout not far away, so if we catch some this afternoon, they’ll be beautifully fresh. And have you had any thoughts about breakfast tomorrow?’

‘Are you quite sure we can’t get croissants or _pains chocolats_ made with proper French wheat?’

‘I’m afraid not. I could make fruit scones, though, if you’d like something sweet, and you could always have drinking chocolate to go with them.’

‘You only let _me_ have one mug of chocolate a day, at bedtime!’ protested Sir John. ‘Why’s Erik allowed it for breakfast?’

‘I don’t want chocolate anyway,’ announced Erik. ‘I’d rather have an omelette.’

‘Yes, you could use the protein,’ said Cheiron. ‘If you want to ride on my back, we could go down to the farm now to buy some eggs for tomorrow morning.’

‘But the people at the farm always stare at me,’ complained Erik, ‘and now you’ve taken my bandages off, they’ll be able to see my scars and they’ll stare even more. Can’t you go on your own?’

‘Now, you know I’m supposed to keep an eye on you,’ said Cheiron.

‘I’ll go, if you like,’ offered Malvolio. ‘Which way is the farm, anyway?’

So Cheiron gave Malvolio a purse of money and a shopping-list and sent him off, the King and Sir John went fishing, and I stayed behind to let Erik resume my music lesson, while Cheiron knelt on the ground, sewing, and made sure we were behaving ourselves.

‘You need to learn to hear _notes_ – don’t worry about the words for now,’ Erik began. ‘I’ll sing a note, and you sing it back. _Aaah!_ ’

‘ _Aaah!_ ’ I sang back.

‘Aaaaaah!’

‘Aaaaaah!’

‘ **AAAH**!’

‘ **AAAH**!’

‘Ah! Ah!  Aaah!’

‘[D! D! G! D! D! G! DCBA, GABC, D! D! G!](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+%27hot+cross+buns%27&docid=608007446000242189&mid=E73002AD758DE37978B6E73002AD758DE37978B6&view=detail&FORM=VIRE)’ I sang, as the tune was obviously ‘Hot Cross Buns’.

‘NO!’ snarled Erik. ‘If you’re going to sing note names, you might as well be singing the words. I just want you to sing back _precisely_ what I sing to you, or you can stop wasting my time.’

‘Calm down, Erik, he’s doing his best,’ said Cheiron.

‘No, he isn’t; that’s the trouble! Try again, English knight: Ah! **AH!** _Aaah!_ ’

‘Ah! **AH!** _Aaah!_ ’ I sang.

‘That’s it! You see, Cheiron, he _can_ do it right! Now we’ll try a song, but it’ll have to be one you don’t understand, so you’re just concentrating on the sounds. Do you speak French?’

‘A bit,’ I said.

‘Enough to understand what you’re saying?’

‘Sometimes. I can say, _Je suis Anglais, donc je suis imbecile_ , which means, “Hello, it’s lovely to be here.” But I don’t usually understand what people say to me in return.’

Erik cackled with laughter. ‘Well, that’s good enough for me! Now sing: [_Calme des nuits..._](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Saint+Sean%27s+Calme+Des+Nuit&&view=detail&mid=CA224D7A96F117681A44CA224D7A96F117681A44&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DSaint%2BSean%2527s%2BCalme%2BDes%2BNuit%26FORM%3DVDMHRS)’

‘ _Karma day newts..._ ’

‘ _Fraicheur des soirs..._ ’

‘ _Pressure day sores..._ ’

‘ _Vaste scintillements des mondes!_ ’

‘ _Faster sentiments day Mondays!’_

By the time the others came back with food supplies, Erik and I had broken the backs of [_Calme Des Nuits_](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Saint+Sean%27s+Calme+Des+Nuit&&view=detail&mid=CA224D7A96F117681A44CA224D7A96F117681A44&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DSaint%2BSean%2527s%2BCalme%2BDes%2BNuit%26FORM%3DVDMHRS) and [_Come Away Death_](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+%27come+away+death%23&docid=608038210899936958&mid=B49207A246E2D345BADCB49207A246E2D345BADC&view=detail&FORM=VIRE), and made a start on [_Parisian Pierrot_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_CY8Vz2jqU). I had been concentrating harder on singing than I had done on anything before, and was intellectually drained and more than ready to fall asleep, and, when Cheiron showed us the new tents and backpacks he’d made so that everyone could carry a fair share of the luggage, I felt even wearier.

King Arthur cooked a beautiful meal of trout in watercress sauce, and even Erik agreed to eat a small piece of fish, because, he said, he needed to keep his strength up if he was trying to teach me to sing. He kept his eyes closed while he ate, in case the sight of the rest of us eating put him off. Cheiron, who was a vegetarian, munched his way through a huge platter of raw watercress and bread, and afterwards King Arthur brought out a basket of berries for dessert. Finally, we began to sort out where we were going to sleep for the night, and then the trouble started.

‘I can’t go to sleep if there’s a candle burning!’ snapped Erik. ‘You can use it to light your way to bed, but you’ll have to snuff it out before you go to sleep.’

‘Well, I can’t sleep if it’s pitch-dark,’ retorted Malvolio. ‘This cave is as dark as a madhouse.’

‘You’re not still going on about that, are you?’ exclaimed Sir John. ‘It was months ago! If I had a hang-up about every time someone had played a prank on me, I’d need to develop a phobia of rivers, laundry baskets, deer-horns, women’s clothes, buckram cloaks, and waiters hovering in the background who turn out to be my friends in disguise spying on me to find out what I say about them behind their backs. I wouldn’t be able to open my eyes without having a panic attack!’

‘Come on, everyone knows you’re a complete coward,’ sneered Malvolio.

‘When it comes to people with swords who are trying to kill me, yes! When you’ve run away from as many fights as I have, it doesn’t leave room for worrying about being ridiculous.’

‘What about fear of being rejected by someone you love?’ asked Cheiron.

‘Well, that’s already happened,’ muttered Sir John.

‘It’s happened to everyone here,’ said Cheiron. ‘Everyone is scarred by rejection, and if the worst effect it’s had on Malvolio is that, for the time being, he doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping in complete darkness, that’s no reason to make fun of him.’

‘It is pathetic, though, isn’t it?’ said Malvolio. ‘It’s wasteful leaving a candle burning all night, and it’s a fire hazard, and it’s extremely childish.’

‘You could try reading by candlelight to help you relax, before you go to sleep,’ suggested Cheiron. ‘What are you reading? _Silas Marner_?’

‘Yes. And I know it’s an anachronism, but it’s a beautiful book, even if it was written by a woman called George who lived with a man also called George who was married to someone else. I know Mistress George must have been a very wicked woman, but she must have had some good in her, to write a book like this.’

‘Do you remember the bit where Silas’s friends tell him that he has to punish his child when she’s naughty, either by smacking her or putting her in the coal-hole? So he puts her in there for about ten seconds, takes her out and gives her a bath and sits down to get on with his work, and a few minutes later, Eppie’s wandered off again? Because she wants to go on with this wonderful new game of playing in the coal-hole!’

‘Yes – I suppose it’s not really a punishment if Eppie doesn’t know it’s supposed to be frightening,’ said Malvolio. ‘It’s a happy book, isn’t it?’

‘Well, then, you think about Silas and Eppie before you go to sleep, and then you’ll fall asleep feeling happy,’ said Cheiron. ‘And if you decide to sleep in one of the tents, that wouldn’t be as dark as the cave. It’s not likely to rain tonight, so you could have the tent flap open if you like, so you can see the moon and the stars.’

‘I suppose I could,’ said Malvolio dubiously. ‘You know, some people think moonlight makes you go mad. That’s where the word “lunatic” comes from.’

‘Well, I’ve been a doctor for over two thousand years, and I can promise you it’s not true,’ said Cheiron. ‘And the fact that I’m happy for you to sleep in moonlight shows that I don’t think there’s any danger of your becoming a lunatic.’

‘Can I sleep in the tent as well?’ I asked. ‘Only I don’t know anyone else here very well, and we’re – well, not friends, but we’ve been enemies longer than we’ve known any of the others.’

‘You don’t fancy spending the night with Erik? I don’t blame you,’ said Malvolio.

Cheiron helped us to put the tent up, and we didn’t say anything further until the others had retired to the cave. When we were in our sleeping-bags, Malvolio asked quietly, ‘Do you want to stay with these people?’

‘I like them,’ I said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Not particularly. Cheiron _seems_ friendly enough, but the fact is that he’s a creature from pagan mythology. King Arthur is supposed to have been a Christian king, but his tutor who helped him become king was a wizard, and now, when he’s old enough to know better, he seems to be deliberately surrounding himself with the vilest criminals he can find. Then again,’ Malvolio added thoughtfully, ‘it’s possible that this is some kind of test, to separate the wheat from the tares. In which case, if I stay with him to speak up for honesty and decency, I can’t fail to show to my best advantage compared to Erik and Sir John.’

‘They’re not that bad,’ I said. ‘They’re probably just lost and lonely, like us, not really evil. Of if they are evil, maybe King Arthur wants to help them reform.’

‘And that’s the other reason I ought to stay,’ said Malvolio. ‘Because you don’t seem to be able to recognise evil when it’s staring you in the face, but I’m not convinced you’re entirely evil yourself yet – or at least, I don’t know for certain that you’re predestined to eternal damnation. You generally just mimic the vices of whoever you’re with. If I was a Catholic, I’d probably conclude that you were heading towards Limbo, but, as a Protestant, I have to accept that you’re either destined for Heaven or Hell, which leaves open the possibility that you might be one of the people God wants to save. In which case, I think I’d better act as your good angel trying to protect you from the influence of the fiends in that cave. Goodnight.’

I could hear the ‘fiends’ Erik and Sir John laughing loudly at something, probably Malvolio. I wished I was in the cave with them.


End file.
